https://vegetarianprogrammer.blogspot.com/2012/12/understanding-synchronizationcontext-in.html

It's All About the SynchronizationContext

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/gg598924.aspx

Don't Block on Async Code

https://blog.stephencleary.com/2012/07/dont-block-on-async-code.html

ExecutionContext vs SynchronizationContext

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/pfxteam/archive/2012/06/15/executioncontext-vs-synchronizationcontext.aspx

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/mjeelani/archive/2010/06/07/top-2-things-you-should-know-about-the-global-assembly-cache-gac-in-net-4-0.aspx

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/astebner/archive/2006/11/04/why-to-not-use-gacutil-exe-in-an-application-setup.aspx

https://blogs.iis.net/davcox/archive/2009/07/14/where-is-gacutil-exe.aspx

Hope this helps,

-Jack

Not like in the previous versions of Windows, win 8 now uses Win+space hotkey to switch between the languages. So the beloved years of Ctrl+space disappears. And, another damn thing I really hate is, once I switch the IME, all running applications now are with that IME. Which means I have to switch again and again between English input and Chinese input always, once after I have to deal with a friend with whom I have to type Chinese.

So today I’m enough with this switch and spent some little more time on the language configurations of win 8 and it turns out I can get my comfortable ways back.

Use the Change your language preferences windows, open the Advanced settings option, and turn on the Let me set a different input method for each app window option. Then log off and re-login, all the familiar behaviors are back and voilà!

We encountered a weird problem when we tried to configure the size for the abovementioned local resource. I’ll call it LocalStorageLogDump as below. My initial thinking of this sizeInMB configuration is that as long as it is below the limit of the virtual machine’s local storage size, which is about 200GB for a small instance, it should be ok. However, when I put a 5000MB (5GB) in the config, it failed to start the diagnostic monitor.

By reflectoring the diagnostic assembly and later reading the following article, I then realized, the local resource that is used for WAD, has to be less than the size of a local resource named DiagnosticStore which by default is 4GB and not in the .csdef file. Then after I explicitly added that configuration entry and gave it a larger value, WAD starts to work.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.windowsazure.diagnostics.diagnosticmonitorconfiguration.overallquotainmb.aspx

<LocalResources>
  <LocalStorage name="LocalStorageLogDump" cleanOnRoleRecycle="true" sizeInMB="5000" />
  <LocalStorage name="DiagnosticStore" cleanOnRoleRecycle="false" sizeInMB="10000" />
</LocalResources>

[Update: 9/16/2013]

The cleanOnRoleRecycle attribute is better with a “false” value, according to this post, in case you encountered the same/similar issues.

Turning to the past to power Windows' future: An in-depth look at WinRT

https://arstechnica.com/features/2012/10/windows-8-and-winrt-everything-old-is-new-again/

Business Continuity in SQL Azure
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/hh852669.aspx

SQL Azure Backup and Restore Strategy
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/1792.sql-azure-backup-and-restore-strategy.aspx

How to Use Data-Tier Application Import and Export with SQL Azure
https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/2639.aspx

Copying Databases in SQL Azure
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsazure/ff951624.aspx

However, if you really want to automate the backup operation and save some manual efforts, you then need to write some codes/scripts to really orchestrate all these existing options and maximize the overall goodness that you can get from these options.

Now, here is the good news, a tool (SQL Azure Data Protector) is created for you just to do all these things. What you only need to do is:

• Download and install the little tool on a machine that usually schedules Ops tasks for you
• Create a profile (configurations like server names, credentials, locations, storage account, etc.)
• Schedule a periodic task using, for example, Windows Task Scheduler

If you want to understand more details about how this tool works, you can read the documents. Of course, you can also check out the source codes directly, as well.

Till next time,

-jackma

WEP is basically non-secure, so if you encountered the same issue as me, you can think of trying the same approach as I did to see if it would be the rescue.

Till next time,

-jackma

“I wrote an article on Weibo “They Said…” (Chinese) by Lu Chunqing. A very nice article. She mentioned the pressure from “They said…” in mainland China. People tell you to be stable, to get a good job, and to marry quickly… The general opinion from the public just gradually change people, until they become different.”

Patrick wrote an essay about writing unit testing code in c#, in which I personally found a lot of good points that I could not agree more. For example:

• Not all classes need to be 100% covered by tests or even covered at all.
• The 100% coverage practice is costly only when it forces substandard code to be well designed.

And especially for the second one, I think it is inspirational and encouraging. I faced situations from time to time that for some certain piece of codes/logic, it was difficult to write a comprehensive test suite to cover all the branches. Honestly, most of time when I faced this, I will choose to leave the coverage not to 100% and accept the fact. But after reading this, knowing what, from now on, I will try my best to achieve the 100% coverage by not only writing comprehensive test cases, but also refactoring the “difficult” logic to the best designed, intuitive, and joyful to read codes.

And I mean it.